Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  The plasma stream we get from the solar surface will be much cooler, but we’re talking about “cool” in terms of a sun. I’m guessing the plasma stream we get will be adequate. If we have to, we can gradually change the destination coordinates and move the gate locus deeper into the Sun.

  We’ll see if it works.

  “Diogenes?” I asked, handing over the ring and bracket.

  “Yes, Professor?”

  “This reminds me. The Von Neumann solar panels appear to have tripped their population limit and started dumping some of their magical production onto the planet. I already said you could disconnect the electromagical transformer from that, didn’t I?”

  “No, Professor.”

  “Okay, you can do that, now. Also, thinking ahead, I’m concerned about potential climate change. Where can we put the solar conversion panels with minimal impact on the planet’s temperature? The polar regions?”

  “As I understand it, you have the array tied to the planet around the equator, rotating with the Earth. Is it necessary to have the ring of panels locked to the rotation of the planet?”

  “Ah. Hmm.” I thought about it for a minute. “I guess not. I was thinking of it as an orbiting space station, sort of, composed of solar panels. It’s easier to let it tie into the ground, though. It still has to be anchored to the planet, somehow, both to feed power to it and for ground-to-orbit maintenance spells. I’d hate to have to reach up there without a pre-built linkage. It also needs the linkage to stay with the planet—I think. It’s an energy-based construct and I’m not sure it won’t gradually drift off into space as Earth continues its celestial movements independent of the array.”

  “Then yes, I suggest reshaping and relocating the array around the polar regions. A study of hypothetical geometries indicates a line of panels extending vertically along the field lines of the magnetic poles seems most practical.”

  “An excellent idea! I wish I’d thought of it. I’ll get on it… later. Probably some night when I’m feeling up to it. Doing it during the day isn’t going to happen.”

  “Understood. Shall I bring in the figurines?”

  “Yes, definitely. What day is it in Karvalen?”

  “December eleventh. You have fourteen days to complete the birthday present.”

  “Unless we get a timeslip. I’ll start now.” I switched out wands from my toolkit and started connecting them to orichalcum cables. A robot rolled in with a box—a chessboard and accompanying figurine pieces. I accepted the box, laid out the board, and started with it.

  I’m going to teach my great-granddaughter to play chess. That’s for me.

  It’s also a toy she can use to practice her power-channeling skills. That’s for her.

  The board itself will act as a power input device. She can, if she’s careful, put only vital energy into it. The board is a high-temperature superalloy, so if she doesn’t get it exactly right, hopefully she won’t melt it. The point is to let her practice, not make her feel bad for goofing it up.

  The pieces are also carved out of alloys with high melting points, one much darker than the other. They’ll be enchanted to absorb vital energy from the board. Suitably charged up, the enchantments will make them animated little figures, moving around the board on command, but only in legal moves. When one piece takes another, the others will get out of the way and the two pieces will “fight” each other until the attacking piece “kills” the other. Then the dead piece will be carried off by his side before the rest resume their places.

  To avoid any sad eyes from Tymara, the “dead” pieces will then stand up at the edges of the board and watch the game, cheering when their side takes a piece, booing when the other side does, and so on. It’s a game, after all.

  I already made an enchanted hairband for her so she could play with other children without risk of accidentally incinerating them. This year, it’s a toy, not a safety device. I hope I’m not jumping the gun on teaching her chess, though. She’s turning seven. Is that too early? I learned to play chess when I was seven.

  Maybe next year I’ll teach her to ride a bicycle.

  I wonder if Tianna would let me take her on a trip to Apocalyptica? Tymara might like to see a movie or ride in an airplane. If she can keep her hair under control, she might even enjoy a roller-coaster.

  Several hours later, with the pieces moving on their own and playing without supervision, I was happy with it. I thought to add a basic tutoring function, as well. A selected piece would not only refuse illegal moves, but the board would make legal squares change color, highlighting the possible moves. Any piece the selected figure could capture would take a defensive stance. Allied pieces occupying squares would fold arms and shake heads, refusing to budge.

  With that done, I unhooked wands and put everything away while Diogenes boxed up the chess set. Then I went to find Mary. I checked our rooms first, then the kitchen, then did what I should have done in the first place.

  “Diogenes?”

  “Mary is in Flintridge.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew what I was going to ask. He watches me all the time, like an omnipresent butler, always trying to anticipate my wants and needs.

  Hmm. I should check on The Manor, too. And check in with T’yl… no, T’yl will send word when he has elves for me the clone. So, The Manor or Mary?

  Given our recent talk, I decided on Mary.

  Flintridge, Monday, September 15th, 1969

  I arrived late in the afternoon. She wasn’t in the warehouse, so I got out the Diogephone—with free multiversal roaming!—and called her. She didn’t answer. Well, if she’s in a business meeting or sneaking around someone’s house, she doesn’t take calls.

  Rather than go back immediately, I checked the time. Sunset in about an hour… no, now was not the time to fire up the Toronado and go for a leisurely drive. Our quarters in Long Beach are technically part of Los Angeles, and getting stuck in traffic is not something I want to do around sunset.

  I muttered something about her wanting more time and then not being around, then settled in to wait.

  Sunset came and went without Mary. This concerned me greatly. While I cleaned up from the sunset transformation, I wondered where she was and how she was dealing with it. Hotel? Abandoned house? A house full of recently-deceased people? Or was she hiding in her trunk? Her Toronado—both of our cars—are specially modified for that, but it’s inconvenient and I knew she didn’t like it.

  I tried her Diogephone again, but there was still no answer. You’d think if she was in her trunk or something, she could at least answer the phone.

  I muttered and grumbled some more as I set up an active location spell. Since this was a low-magic universe, we didn’t routinely wear the full cloaking array. In Rethven, or Karvalen, she and I are wrapped in enough anti-detection magic to keep off all sorts of magical radar. Here, though…

  The first pulse didn’t return a result anywhere within a hundred miles. Annoyed, I gathered up energies for considerably longer, drawing on the floor with chalk, chanting, and waving my hands around as I guided energies into the spell. The second pulse was considerably more powerful and finally got a hit.

  I spread a map on the floor, put a compass on it, and drew a line. Bearing and distance said she was in Nevada, not California, somewhere near Las Vegas. I had mixed feelings about this. She did mention something about a new drop box in Las Vegas, but she also wasn’t answering her phone.

  I considered my Toronado. I could open a gate to Vegas and steal a car to get around in. If I simply drove, how fast could I get to Las Vegas from here?

  Answer: if you’re willing to spend enough effort on the spell to absorb radar, you can floor it along most of the I-15 and do it in about two and a half hours. It helps if you don’t use headlights. The cop napping behind the billboard may wake up as you go by, but he still doesn’t see anything.

  I filled up at a gas station in Paradise, just south of Las Vegas. I also borrowed the restroom to cast another l
ocating spell. Someone is going to wonder about the graffiti on the bathroom wall.

  It took almost four hours to track her down, counting the drive. I wish I’d had enough power to make gate use more convenient.

  The location was out in the desert, at an intersection of two dirt roads. There was nothing to hide in or hide behind. It was flat, dusty as a disused hell, and a rolling tumbleweed would have added excitement to the scenery. I didn’t see Mary, her car, or anything else.

  On the other hand, someone recently dug a hole in the middle of the intersection and filled it back in. Standing over it, my locator said she was straight down. So I started scooping dirt away with my hands. I resolved to carry a shovel in the trunk for the future. Digging with hands is remarkably efficient for small holes. Scooping and flinging goes much faster than shoveling. However, once you start getting some real depth, the shovel becomes more practical for tossing dirt up and out.

  Half an hour later, I was five or six feet below the level of the road and finally ran into Mary. Another few minutes of excavation and I had her out. She was filthy, but mostly intact. Her eyes were open and dirty and her lips were sewn shut. Someone filled her mouth with salt before burying her at a crossroads.

  Someone—presumably the same someone—also rammed a wooden stake through her dress, ribcage, and heart, apparently from behind. It wasn’t a makeshift stake, either, but a deliberately sharpened piece of wood. It had small holes drilled through both ends, too, and a length of electrical wire strung between them, tight against her left side to keep the stake from accidentally slipping out.

  This is one reason I always wear the ballistic-fiber underwear. I resolved to say nothing even resembling “I told you so.” She was not going to be in a good mood.

  I cast a cleaning spell on her and on myself. Then I snapped the wire and pulled out the stake. She immediately ripped out the stitching in her lips and spat salt for a while. Her fingernails were longer than I remembered; I’m not sure she could retract them at that moment. She hacked and snarled and spat. I stepped back and let her work it out. If she wanted a hug, she would let me know. Now did not seem a good time.

  When she stopped making inhuman noises, I looked inquiringly at her. I didn’t think it wise to press her for details until she was ready.

  “Take me out for a drink,” she stated, and moved to sit in the car like a barely-contained thunderstorm.

  So I drove us into Las Vegas.

  “Is there anywhere in particular?” I asked, cautiously.

  “No.”

  “We could go back to Apocalyptica—” I began.

  “No.”

  Even I could tell it was a bad time to press for details. The rest of the ride was silent.

  Las Vegas in 1969 isn’t the neon Babylon I recall. It’s still got neon and lights and places for tourists, but the lights haven’t yet covered every surface like a luminescent fungus. The city hasn’t turned into… what’s the phrase? Den of iniquity? Yes, I think that’s it. It’s still a party town, but a less obvious one. Another ten, twenty years and things available in the back room of every hotel will be sold at the front desk and added to the room charge. Right now, it was surprisingly… calm. And not flashing several million watts of light at me. I liked it.

  I parked by a telephone booth and riffled through for the all-night butcher shops. If this Las Vegas was average, there would be a few that didn’t blink at a request for blood. I made some calls, got a few answers of “You want what?”, and finally found one willing to sell blood by the gallon.

  We drove over while Mary continued to seethe. I intended to go in and buy her a couple of gallons, but she got out of the car with me and stuck close by my side. I wasn’t sure if she was hungry, worried about me, or if she was afraid to be alone. Maybe all at once.

  We bought four gallons, one for each hand, and returned to the car. I drove around the city, she drank, and anything she spilled crawled over to me.

  Suitably refreshed, she suddenly clapped a hand on one thigh and made sound like a hostile cat.

  “They took my knives!”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “The Castigliones! I met with Salvatore to play the part of the good secretary type, confirming arrangements, making appointments, all that sort of thing. He was upset at what he called the ‘mick problem’—your Irish connection—and wanted to talk to you.”

  “I’d have talked to him, if you wanted.”

  “Yeah, but how was I going to call you? They don’t even have cell phones here, so I wasn’t going to demonstrate my communications bracelet—which they’ve also taken!” Her comments turned unladylike.

  “Hmm. Note for the future, we need to set something up so we can call from local landlines.”

  “It’s fine in high-tech places. Diogenes can establish a data connection through a micro-gate to most of them. Any pre-Internet world is a problem.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The folks around here would be familiar with the Dick Tracy Two-Way Wrist Radio, maybe even the Two-Way Wrist TV. Still, we do need some sort of phone connection for Diogenes.”

  “Could you not distract me while I’m ranting!?”

  “I apologize. I abase myself. Continue.”

  “Salvatore and a goon squad of bodyguards insist on me calling you. He was deeply upset about the Irish guys and willing to do something painful about it. His bodyguards, by the way, aren’t for show. They’re tough and well-trained. I found out the hard way.

  “While I was trying to explain I couldn’t simply phone you, they jumped me. Lucky for them it was daytime and I was still thinking in terms of business deals. If I’d had more warning than a bunch of guys moving to grab me, it would’ve ended very differently. As it is, one is dead, two have broken bones, and none of them are uninjured.

  “Salvatore and his least-damaged goons tied me up in the basement and started working me over to get information while more of Salvatore’s men arrived. That wasn’t fun, but then the sun started to go down.

  “I don’t know much about what the local vampires are like, and neither does Salvatore. He didn’t know what was going on, at first, but he figured it out—I’m betting it’s his Italian upbringing. You would be surprised at how many rosaries you can dig up in an Italian household.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “I was. Very quickly, he stopped thinking of me as a source of information about his competitors—how he found out about the deal with the Irish mob is still not clear to me—and started thinking of me as an undead monster to be destroyed. With everyone holding crosses and surrounding me, it hurt and weakened me enough I couldn’t even break my ropes.”

  “Note for the future,” I agreed.

  “After that, it was wooden stake, a box of salt, the works.”

  “I saw. He thought that would kill you?”

  “I presume so. Maybe it kills the local vampires. I’m surprised the stake through the heart didn’t eventually kill me. It kills Thessalonki and the other tribes if nobody takes it out. All it did was paralyze me, but maybe it takes hours instead of minutes.”

  “You’re not exactly a Thessaloniki anymore,” I pointed out.

  “True. But a chunk of wood through the heart doesn’t paralyze you. All it does is stop your regeneration.”

  “Don’t ask me why,” I pleaded. “We’re guessing you’re not dead because you’re a hybrid, not a pure Thessaloniki?”

  “Yes, but come sunrise, the stake was going to kill my mortal self.”

  “Also true. I’m glad I worried about you.”

  “So am I! Now we have to find Salvatore and feed him his toes.”

  “We do?”

  “You disagree? After what I’ve been through tonight? If you kiss me, you’ll still taste salt!”

  “No, no. Not at all. But maybe we can plan this a little better. I mean, going straight in and killing everything on the way, that’s fine, but I want some time to prepare spells. Maybe even send for Firebrand. O
r we could, I don’t know, ruin him financially. If we can make his—what did he call it? His ‘mick problem’ get exponentially worse, it’ll be a slow torture as everything he’s built collapses around him. Then we go visit, you tell him you’re responsible, and skin him like peeling a banana.”

  “Hmm,” she replied. Mary settled back in the seat and thought about it. “I like the idea of peeling him. Do we have fifty gallons of vinegar?”

  “I’m sure we can source some. However,” I went on, “before we do anything, I think we should find out all we can about the local vampires.”

  “Why?”

  “If Salvatore immediately recognized you for what you are—and was immediately hostile—there might be a shadow war going on between the vamps and the local mafia. It would be good to know beforehand. Who’s involved? And what do the Italians use against the vampires? After all, staking through the heart, burying at the crossroads, filling the mouth with salt and sewing it shut—that’s pretty damn specific. I would tend to think they know what they’re doing. Or,” I added, as the thought struck me, “Salvatore might not know anything about real vampires. He could be going off local folklore and getting confused about his supernatural entity protocols.”

  “You’re depressingly rational,” Mary noted. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t certain about what to do. I was paralyzed, not comatose.” She paused for a moment. “If you’re ever buried with your eyes open, you’ll understand why I’m upset.”

  “I imagine. You think he didn’t know what to do?”

  “I heard them arguing in Italian about what should be done. One of his guys wanted to shoot me in the heart with a silver bullet. Another one wanted to hang a wreath of garlic around my neck. One suggested drowning me in holy water—impractical, given they didn’t have a priest on call. So they settled for a combination of things. The stake, the salt, the burying at the crossroads. I’m lucky they didn’t behead me.”